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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Yo-Yo (slang): Fool or idiot.
Yo-Yo (noun): A child's toy that goes up and down on a string.

And if I ever find the dang string attached to the number 281, I will find the biggest scissors I can and cut it!

For the past year, I have been yo-yoing between 281 and 271. I am back at the top of the string again, and I am NOT happy. For the past month, I have been out of my routine, and I am finally settling back in to a routine. School has started back up again, and that helps immeasurably.

I could focus on what went wrong, or how I feel about it, but instead, I am going to focus on routines. the routines will all be based around being in school again, obviously. My lunch period is kind of late (1:45-2:45pm), so I think that part of my routine will have to be a set time for a healthy snack in-between classes. Actually, since my morning free period is second period (about 10:05-11:05am), maybe I will eat right near the end of my free period. After all, in my schooldays routine, I eat breakfast around 6:30am, which puts that free period about four hours later, and maybe I can keep a few granola bars around for my lunch period later in the afternoon.

Now I have to think about a few other things to work out in my routine and then I can hope to watch the pounds melt off. First things, first, back to work, then on with life and weight loss.

Oh, by the way, I feel like a fool for the way my weight has gotten out of control.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Hi all! I don't know how many of you noticed but not so long ago, we here at Welcoming Weight Loss received our very own domain! Ok, we didn't receive it. We actually purchased it. We're still super excited about it though!

We are so excited that we're going to give all of you a chance to win something that will help in your weight loss and fitness goals. It's a Sportline Pedometer. Walking and movement is so important in being healthy and we thought this little gadget would be the best way to inspire and motivate you to keep on moving! It's going to keep track of those steps and so much more. According to the packaging, this little baby has 15 functions. 15! Some of them include:

Ok, if I did that right, there should be a maximum of 20 entries per person. That's a lot of chances to win! Now, for the fine print:

This giveaway will close at 11:59pm on Monday, September 5th and the winner will be contacted via email. If the winner does not respond by Friday, September 9th, a new winner will be drawn and contacted. This contest is open to all people in the United States and Canada. It is also open to all contributors of Welcoming Weigh Loss, except for Katie, since she's the one sponsoring the giveaway.

I wasn't sure what image to go with this week. I ended up deciding to go with something beautiful. As some of you know, my positive week took a pretty sharp turn at the end of the week. My grandmother, the woman who raised me, has cancer. If that word alone wasn't scary enough, those words were followed by Stage 3, inoperable and throughout her body. I'm swinging through emotions faster than I ever thought possible. One moment I'm sobbing, the next I'm almost clinical in my thoughts of what I want/need to do with her and then I'm calm and ok. It's hard and I know that anyone who has gone through this knows exactly what I'm talking about. I ended up eating almost an entire box of Ding Dongs by myself. Bad for me but I'm not ashamed to admit it. I couldn't make myself go cook so I grabbed what was on hand.

On the other hand, I did better with my water. Getting back into the water habit is proving tougher than I remember the first time around. I've slid back into my habit of not drinking anything. I do know that the more I drink, the easier it will be so that's going to be my goal for again this week.

Plus, this week is our family camping trip. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about this. This is the first time our family has been able to do anything like this. I honestly considered cancelling when we got the news about my grandma but I figured she would kill me. Turns out, I was right. She called me yesterday to ask me how it had gone. She thought it was this past weekend. We spent 45 minutes talking about what we were going to eat, what still needed to be packed and all things related to camping. She's so excited for us.

So, nobody expect to see me online from Wednesday late afternoon until Monday morning. I'm not sure if I'll be posting next week. It's going to depend on what we decide to do as a family. If I'm not here, I expect all of you to leave lots of comment love for all the other sistas. No slacking. I love y'all but I'm going camping with my family. :)

Monday, August 22, 2011

I cannot believe how fast this summer is whipping by. It just doesn't seem possible that it's Monday again. The calendar says it is though. So, what have I been up to this past week?

Let's see...Most of last week was taken up with cleaning and preparing to go down to Toledo to celebrate with Chris and Lauren. Can I just say that they are seriously one good looking couple? I'm so happy to see them so happy. They had a great reception and I hope they enjoyed it as much as their guests did. I know that the boys had fun and that they especially liked the hotel that we stayed at. I don't blame them I thought it was really nice too. Plus, we got a free breakfast and the boys got an hour in the pool before we headed back North.

On the way home, we stopped by my grandmother's house and I was happy to see her up and making herself some lunch. My mother has been spreading stories about how she has lung cancer and breast cancer and let me tell you, she had me scared. There's still the chance of cancer but she's been cleared in both of those areas. She's undergoing more tests and they'll be going over the results with her doctor, mid-September. That tells me that this isn't a panic situation. I can relax a little.

As for now, the boys and I are preparing for company, camping and the start of school. I found out last night that their dad's girlfriend did a benefit sale on her Etsy shop and raised enough money to buy Ben a new netbook for school. That means the laptop that Ryan sent us will stay here at my house and be used to work on computer skills for both of the boys. I am so very thankful for the support that people have shown us. It truly is amazing what people will do to help when you just reach out. Please, go and give both Misty and Ryan some love. Speaking of love, I just have to say that I have loved all the homework chats that Gena and I have instigated this week. I'm envious that she got asked to speak tonight at Mamavation tv. I know she's going to have everyone laughing and smiling though. Of course, that reminds me of the other thing I started this week. I've started a new website partially inspired by the homework discussions. It's called Straight Sex Talk and it can be found at http://www.straightsextalk.com . That's a nice and easy url, huh?

I bet you've noticed that I haven't mentioned a single thing about fitness or weight loss in this post. That's because this past week was also one where I did a bit of self-reflection. I realized that I've been feeding myself (and you that read) a bunch of excuses as to why I wasn't doing what I should be doing. That's all they are. So, I'm starting over and I'm starting with water. Just water. I'm not pushing myself to the point where it's too much and I give up. I'm going to find my water bottle, get it filled up and start drinking while I leave my comment love for my sistas.

Question: Why do you think exploring intimacy is an important part of a healthy lifestyle?

As humans, we all have a desire to belong and to love and be loved. Intimacy is a part of how we meet this need. Intimacy doesn't have to be physical. An intimate relationship is simply a close interpersonal relationship. Exploring those types of relationships fulfills those needs and helps us to be healthier (mentally) and happier people.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Time is flying by and I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up! It's hard to believe but in 3 short weeks, school will be starting again. I'm not ready. I'm not ready for the obvious reasons. I haven't bought school supplies yet. The kids don't have new shoes yet. I'm also not ready because it means I "lose" my boys. They go back to their dad's and I only have them here with me every other weekend. I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready for summer to end.

Summer is over yet, though and we have plans! Woo! This weekend, we're going down to Toledo to celebrate the marriage of my friends, Chris and Lauren. I'm so happy for the pair of them. This will be the first time just the boys and I have ever gone to a wedding reception. I don't worry about their behavior. I just hope that they have a good time.

Then, it's home to do more cleaning and purging. It feels good to see space opening up in this house. We're not close to done yet but already we can see so much improvement in the house and it's making us all happy to see it. During that time we also have to start packing for our family vacation! Woo!

For the first time really ever, we're going on a family vacation. Justin, the boys and I are going camping labor day weekend. We're all so excited. We're staying at a state campground right on Lake Huron so there's going to be camping and walks around the campground. We're also planning on visiting at least one lighthouse and a dinosaur park. Did I mention that I can't wait? I'm so excited. I've already got lists going of everything that needs to be bought (groceries) or packed (everything else).

What does all this mean about my fitness goals? It means that right now, they're still back burnered while I enjoy every moment that I can with my boys. We're still drinking water and we even talked about working exercise into our schedules. My boys are learning and growing with me on this journey. It's a good thing.

What qualities do you look for in a healthy breakfast? Any go-to breakfast recommendations for a busy mom?

I don't know that I have any recommendations. We prefer quick and easy. Smoothies are one of our favorites. The supplies are always on hand and it's as easy as tossing everything into the blender. As for qualities, I would say that quick and easy is at the top of the list in addition to be filling and healthy.

“This post is sponsored by Quaker Oats and I’m writing this to be entered into a giveaway hosted by Mamavation and sponsored by Quaker Oats.”

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Well, it has been quite a while since I have posted, so I should give a brief summary of all that has happened to me in the past couple of months. Well, school came to a screeching close way too soon for me (I never seem to have enough time in a school year to accomplish everything I want to accomplish), I went to Washington DC with a group of teachers for a week, and I got very involved in a new relationship which created far too much stress in my life. It has been unbearably hot outside, and I haven't been hiking for the first two-thirds of the summer.

I am starting to get the relationship stuff figured out, and think it needs to come to an end, which of course will cause more stress. I got out hiking this past weekend (it felt good to put a few miles under my feet again), and I am slowly getting myself together with a little counseling and support of good friends.

So my weigh-in first: 276.8. I am up from my low of 271 point whatever, and down from my start weight on the blog of 277 and definitely down from my start weight when I first started trying to lose weight of 294. So, hopefully I will get back on track now.

I have some friends though, that have lost huge amounts of weight, 18 pounds in the past month, give or take. It is kind of depressing, until I learned exactly what they were doing. They were following a fad diet from the 70's which has become repopularized of late called the HCG diet. The diet involves a strict calorie limit of 500 (in their case 700) calories per day. Everything they eat is low-fat and they cut sugar and starches almost completely out of their diets. They take a multivitamin, and they take HCG drops to aid in the weight loss (FWIW, even without the drops, a 700 calorie a day diet would cause dramatic weight loss).

Katie and I did some talking about this diet and researching it, and learned some pretty interesting facts:

HCG is a hormone created by a woman's body to nourish the womb and make it a good place for a fetus to develop.

More than a dozen clinical trials tried to verify the value of HCG in weight loss and found no direct benefit.

HCG influences other hormone levels including estrogen and progesterone.

The FDA considers HCG illegal as a diet aid and prevents direct-to-consumer sales.

The National Institutes of Health say that the minimum daily caloric intake should be 1,200 for women and 1,500 for men.

A 1981 study found 17 people who died after following severe calorie restriction diets for 5 months.

There is no magic cure for obesity. There is no superdiet out there waiting to be found. Common sense at the table and moderate physical activity are what are needed to lose weight. Time for me to get back on track!

Monday, August 8, 2011

It's been two weeks since I've posted and we've been some busy campers around here. We've been working hard on getting our house in order and even taking some time to do some fun stuff. These two are the reason I do what I do. They're the reason I drop everything and we go to the zoo when we hear they're doing $1 admission. I love their sense of silliness and I'm glad that they can do things like having their hair spray painted odd colors just because it's offered. They're great boys who are growing up way too fast.

Speaking of way too fast, how is it possibly August already? I swear it was just June. The boys only have one more month of summer break and I'm pouting. I'm not ready for the school year grind to start yet. I never did manage to come up with a fully functioning routine for me last Spring and here it is nearly Fall and I have to do it all over again. It's going to mean tweaking diet and exercise and actually doing both.

I'm going to be honest here. Then again, when aren't I with those of you who read this? Over the past few weeks, I've put weight loss and fitness on the back burner. I've been focusing on my kids, on our family and on our home. You know what? I don't regret it for a minute. We've made good progress on things and we've had time together as a family. In our lives, sometimes we just don't get enough time together. Soon, they'll go back to their dad's for the school year and while I do get to pick them up from school, as their mom, it feels like I never do enough or spend enough time with them. I'm glad that we had time together, doing things that we love. In fact, depending on the weather this week, I think I might just surprise them with another trip to the lake.

For now though, I'm going to give them big hugs, remind them of their chore list and go leave some of the other Mamavation gals some comment love.

Average Daily Water Intake: 40ozWorkouts: None though I did walk a mile around the zoo one day.Weight Change:277.0 (-1.4 pounds)Overall Weight Change: -14.6 pounds

About

Welcoming Weight Loss is a safe haven for a group of friends who have all decided to take the journey to better health and weight loss. We'll share not only our triumphs, but our setbacks. We'll share our tips and our favorite recipes and anything else we learn along the way.